Townsend scowled. “Marlow booked passage on a ship to India last week, right after you returned to town. He departed yesterday, just at the time he pretended to run his errands.”
“No.” Her voice quavered in disagreement. “No, he would not. No. I would have known.” She shook her head. “No. He took nothing with him! Why would he leave with nothing?”
“Perhaps because he didn’t want you to know his plans.” Her father’s voice was firm, but kind. “We asked after the appearance of the gentleman who boarded. It was him.”
“And that letter? When did he write it? It looks like it’s been trod over by a horse.”
They just stared at her. Had he been visiting hotels? Living a dissipated lifestyle? But when? With whom? He had been with her every night, and when he’d been gone in the daytime, he’d never returned looking scruffy or drunk.
“I cannot believe this,” she insisted.
“Did he say anything to make you think he had these feelings?” her father prompted.
Rosalind thought a moment, staring down at her hands. “He said it a lot, that he wasn’t good enough for me. But he didn’t say it like this, like…like he would leave me. Why would he leave me?”
She thought back to their recent conversations, to their interactions just this morning. He had felt guilty. He’d frowned and said he was too coarse, but then he’d kissed her and made love to her.
Had the lovemaking been wistful, rather than sweet? Had it been a goodbye?
“He would not,” she whispered. “He would not. He would not. He would not.”
She was crying in front of all these people. It seemed all she’d done for hours and hours was cry.
“He would not go to India like this, without telling me. He would not leave me.”
Her mother said nothing, only pressed her lips together and turned to her father. She did not understand the look her parents exchanged. She didn’t understand anything anymore.
“He would not,” she insisted as Elizabeth embraced her, cradling her head beneath her chin. “He would not. He would not do this to me.”
“Shh,” said Elizabeth. She had said he was lost. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be this lost.
“He would not do this to me,” she insisted, even as she sobbed like someone mourning the dead.